A judge on Friday postponed the criminal trial against former President Donald Trump in which he is accused of paying to prevent the dissemination of compromising information until at least mid-April, after his lawyers said they needed more time to carefully examine the enormous amount of evidence they recently obtained from a previous federal investigation into the issue.
Judge Juan Manuel Merchan agreed to postpone the trial for 30 days and scheduled a hearing for March 25 to address questions about the evidence. The trial was scheduled to begin on March 25. This is one of four criminal cases against Trump, the virtual Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential election.
Trump’s lawyers wanted a 90-day delay, which would have pushed the trial to start in early summer. Prosecutors said they agreed to a 30-day continuance “out of an abundance of caution and to ensure the defendant has sufficient time to review the new materials.”
Trump’s lawyers said they have received tens of thousands of pages of evidence in the past two weeks from the Manhattan prosecutor’s office, which investigated the hush money deal made when Trump was president.
The evidence includes records about former Trump lawyer-turned-witness Michael Cohen that are “exculpatory and favorable to the defense,” Trump’s lawyers said. Prosecutors said most of the newly turned over material is “largely irrelevant to the subject matter of this case,” although some records are relevant.
The hush money case centers on allegations that Trump falsified his company records to conceal the true nature of payments made to Cohen, who in turn paid porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 during the presidential campaign. in 2016 to keep her quiet about her claims that she had an intimate extramarital relationship with Trump years earlier.
Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 34 criminal charges of falsifying business documents and has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels. His lawyers argue that the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses and were not part of any cover-up.
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